With the advent of wide bandwidth telecommunications networks, numerous enhanced telecommunications services are expected to become available. Some of these enhanced services will comprise visual browsing systems. Illustratively, in a visual browsing system, a sequence of still images is displayed for a viewer. An example of an enhanced telecommunication service utilizing a visual browsing system is catalogue shopping. Typically, a prospective purchaser will view a sequence of still product images on a monitor and based on these images decide whether to purchase a particular product.
In a visual browsing system, it is desirable to present the viewer with a lot of information (i.e. many images) and to do so quickly, so that the viewer can remember the information and act on it. It is also desirable for the user to be able to compare images and choose among them. Both of these needs suggest the desirability of being able to present more than one image at a time. Preferably, the progress of any browsing session is interactive i.e. it is determined by the user as the session progresses. Accordingly, the contents of any multiple-image displays should not be predetermined. Instead the contents of any multiple-image displays should be composed in real time under the control of the viewer.
A still image video processing system should perform three basic operations to provide user-composed multiple still image displays
(1) Shrink: reduce a full size video image in size by a factor M.
(2) Place: position the reduced image at a desired location (x,y) in a new video frame.
(3) Compose: Create a new image comprising appropriately placed smaller images, or alternatively display a relatively small image as an inset in a larger full size image.
Preferably, the composed images should retain true color (i.e. be digitized at 15 to 24 bits per pixel) as opposed to the typical computer graphics color image (1 to 8 bits per pixel). As indicated above, the composing operation should occur in near real time. This means that any single shrink and place operation is desirably completed in about one second or less. It is also desirable for the multiple still image video processing system to be compatible with 525 line 30 sec/frame video, so that a single display device could display sequences of still images as well as full motion sequences. Lastly, it is desirable for a multiple still image composing system to have a computer interface rather than a human interface to enable incorporation of the multiple image composing system into an interactive video applications system including video sources, video displays, and graphics overlay generators.
Commercially available devices generally do not meet the foregoing criteria. Low cost devices based on microprocessors (e.g. the Truevision product line from AT&T) are either too slow or do not provide true color operation. The video special effects generators commonly used by the broadcast TV industry can shrink and place full motion sequence images. However, such devices are generally not applicable for composing multiple still image displays. In addition, the special effects generators used in the TV industry typically have interfaces designed for human interaction with a trained artist and are not suitable for integration into an interactive video applications system to implement an application such as video browsing.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a still frame image processing system capable of composing multiple still image displays in accordance with the criteria discussed above. Thus, it is an object of the invention to provide a system that permits the near real time composition of multiple still image displays comprising one or more reduced size still images interactively selected by the system user.